Poetry

(and I, their deaths)

A blossom of crimson, metal petals
once doors to the car with a purpose to
kill; another suicide bomber, sad
article on CNN; two children
dead, three soldiers murdered; five mothers’ slain
loves lay on a dappled street, red specks and
splashes scattered on black – brothers burnt, bagged,
now memories to the boy that watches
his door no longer guarding his family, dead…
Thinks: who lives but to die? He walks slowly
to the opened door, silence outside

A lonely soldier in awaiting lay,
Death swift approaching his near-corpse –
blood on swept sand, his screams on empty air
wept street wiped clean of people, air – all whole
bodies gone, only those whose bandages
removed now fit others dying, dead, or
left – his is the body whose insides stream
to the air not in a bag nor jar nor
safe in a casket, nor can be returned
to the safe womb but are escorted on
red trails of blood not Palestinian
or Israeli; human, only, now if not then.
no test to tell which flag they reddened under
and no Hatikvah, Biladi to pace
blood’s steps as it streams forth, marked by no one.
Matchless screams echoing in a young boy’s
panicked mind, as he watches his insides
march that perverse parade of guts, blood, and
death.

Does it matter that these two boys shall never meet?
One will die to the tomb of fire, metal, and screams
The other to empty streets; they may have died the same deaths,
In each others shoes, had but they been born but under
One different color, perhaps two; shudder
to think, but for – shudder more, to think
They may have had my name, my place; My life...
(and I, their deaths)